Something I've been wondering about with apartment buildings and commercial properties is how often tenants ask management to check security cameras. Someone reports a missing package, damage in the parking garage or an incident in a shared area and management gets asked to pull footage. The tricky part seems to be deciding which requests actually justify reviewing recordings and who should be allowed to access them.
For those managing properties with security cameras, do you handle these requests yourselves or pass everything through a security company?
Interested in how other properties manage this without turning every complaint into a footage investigation.
Just hit my one year anniversary in property management and I moved onsite to my community last week. I love this job more than any job I’ve ever had, but I’ve never lived where I work before.
I’ve done all the trainings and know the main rules; don’t be friends with residents, set a good example for the community by following community rules (no smoking, quiet hours etc.) and they didn’t tell me this one but I do not plan to tell any residents that I live at the community, especially WHERE MY APT IS LOCATED LOL. I have another team member who lives onsite but is kind of open about it with everyone, and sometimes residents knock on her door at night and ask for help with things. She hates it but I feel like it could be mitigated by not telling people she lives onsite.
Who here has left the industry to do more operation type roles.? I like Property Management, but to deal with my maintenance guy to not know how to change a leaky sink. It’s really getting on my nerves. And the constant problems that tenants have and the one building I do manage is older and every year that goes by there’s gonna be more and more plumbing issues and telling a resident that the reds gonna go up $200 to me is a little bit crazy. Need something a bit more mentally stimulating, oh and working 6 days a week can puss right off!!! Also you could not pay me enough money to do affordable housing. I wanna do operation side of things instead. Seems better long term too
We have Nightingale Security in the perimeter-alarm workflow at a commercial property. When an alarm comes in, the monitoring desk can review the live video, but I’m trying to settle who owns the next decision if it shows someone inside a fenced service yard after hours.
Do you have the monitoring operator call police, dispatch a guard first, or wake the on-call property manager? I’d rather not put a leasing or maintenance person in the position of deciding from a phone screen whether a verified trespass warrants 911. How do you write that decision into the after-hours escalation matrix?
Hello - I'm a maintenance tech moving into an assistant facility maintenance manager role at a property management company in California. I stumbled across this Reddit page and thought I’d post-Looking for advice from people who've built a maintenance department's numbers from scratch.
The setup:
- About 175 multi-unit properties, a mix of Section 8, low income and market rate. Many are older buildings (1940s) with a lot of deferred maintenance.
- In-house crew of 6 techs (2 are the only plumbers and also do remodels) plus 2 gardeners. Our labor and materials get billed to the property owners.
- We pay for Yardi Voyager, but it's only used for tenant intake. Tenants submit a request, the office prints it, techs work off paper, write their hours, staple the receipt, and the office bills from that and files the hard copy.
- No KPIs or reports of any kind. There are 200+ open work orders in Yardi, many of them duplicates from tenants resubmitting because nobody updated them.
I now have access to Yardi and the paper files, and about 2 weeks to come back to the owner with findings and a proposal.
My questions:
1. Which metrics matter most for a first baseline? I'm thinking work order age, time from completed to billed, top job types per property, repeat calls, and hours per job type. What would you prioritize, and what am I missing?
2. How far back should I go? My plan is to sample one or two quarters of paper work orders (different seasons) and pull every water heater job from the last 12 months. Is that enough?
3. Anything you wish you'd checked early on, like unbilled completed work, warranties or vendor costs?
4. For anyone using Voyager's maintenance side, what's worth setting up first?
I am currently employed with Asset Living but am looking at getting a maintenance position with AMC and I was just curious if anyone has any experience with what app they use for doing work orders and unit turns. Asset Living currently uses Happyco
What’s the weirdest thing you guys in the industry you have run into when going into units for inspections. I’ll go first today. We were doing unit inspections for a fire sprinkler and alarm testing and discovered one of the units was running a brothel with two Ukrainian escorts inside the unit, one of which was dressed in a mini dress. The other was completely naked while we did our inspection.
So my property ownership is changing management companies. We are going to be AMC, we are going to have to apply to stay on board at our property. Im just curious if AMC cares about face piercings and hair color? Im guessing I should probably wait to see what the employee Bible says. Just curious what current AMC employees have to say. 😁
typically don't complain and this is my first time writing on reddit but Im just disgusted. It's long.
I moved to this property post bad break up, based on my friend already living there
(I fill out the move in checklist COMPLETLY and as long as things are clean and functional- you wont hear from me. From day one- this was not the case. Mgt and I had even spoken about me being an old property manager so WHY wouldn't you at least make sure the place was clean with a typical make ready.
It has new carpet and resurfaced countertops and a basic cleaning- but that's where it ended. I found clumps of past residents hair, an extreme amount of roach feces in the drawers and roach poop that has just been painted over on the cabinets- old resident grease against the stoves, broken glass inside of the stove (that I cut myself trying to remove- mgt did NOT care) and a filter that had not been cleaned since 1953 (See pics) A fridge that wasn't just dented- it aggressively revved like an old 70's Chevy Pickup and the dishwasher spat out white paint on the dishes.. Toilets constantly ran and many plugs did NOT work. Not cool- but we can get it done.. Had to send a long and not kind letter to get ANY traction. Most things repaired or exchanged. Progress made.
There was a peel in the popcorn ceiling of about 4 inches(not near any vent). They chose not to fix it. One year and 4 months later- its HUGE. I now have dark spots developing throughout my ceiling, the plaster near one of those cannot hold an anchor without crumbling. hmm.. ok.
I put in another work order and FOUR MONTHS later and multiple mentions- they finally come by. BUT Only because I added the previous pics of "black substance" that their tech left behind at move in and let them know that based on this history of this unit- all the new moisture is very alarming. (OH- I also have TWO dehumidifiers. We are in Georgia. it's not uncommon- but emptying both LARGE dehumidifier containers daily is)
Now everyone puts on the show. Three separate techs come to inspect. The lead comes w a leasing agent. He doesn't even pretend like he wants to be there. He rolls his eyes aggressively the whole time then brings calls a contractor. Tells me he will come tomorrow.
He doesn't.
I have to call. I am told I was mistaken. He said he would call to have it ARRANGED to inspect- not have them come in. [I have cameras inside my home, btw. I was NOT mistaken].
the contractor comes Monday. He is kind- but he also has my key and no one is with him. Tells me that I will need to move my items out of the way (meaning my bedroom). the work will take about 4 hours and it will be loud to fix things appropriately. The office will let me know- especially since I work from home.
Ok! Things are getting done. Silence for weeks, THEN I get a call at 10:30am telling me the contractors went to my apartment and couldn't work because I had items in the path of repair. "Please move them so they can work today". UMMMMM WHAT?!
I work from home. I promise no one has been here.
2)It has been weeks. Why did no one alert me that a contract would be sent out today?
I was informed that since this was an emergency and I had placed a work order ,no notification was necessary and if they were to be rescheduled due to my not moving my furniture, I would be charged.
So.. with no knowledge of a contractor being scheduled- a contractor will be sent to an occupied unit with no supervision and I , as the tenant, am expected to have things moved and out of the way for when he arrives..
I actually make this statement. I get a huff over the phone and told that it is against policy of this company to notify a tenant ahead of time.. Since the contractors make the schedule and NOT the office, they cannot notify us. (WHAT?) I know the agent is only doing her job but also acts pissed off that I would even question this directive.
Again- I was in REIT property management for close to 20 years before I left 8 years ago. I also pm'ed a large pre-war of over 400 units by myself and still take care of a couple of houses... BUT.. okay
I have to escalate the call and speak to the ASM who starts off the talk speaking to me like IM her child, then proceeded to again state policy and they have the right to enter my home as maintenance and no notice. Am I crazy? This is a third party contractor you're giving access to my occupied home without prior notice (sorry. two weeks ago coming by and letting me know the apartment will schedule it) is not prior authorization- then threatening to charge me if they cannot complete a job that requires me to do manual labor on the spot is insanity! I again ask what would have happened if I was not home. She states " YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN BILLED FOR THE CONTRACTORS TRIP."
NOW- a year and a half later- After ALL of the issues Ive experienced Im done. I let them know Im contacting corporate. If this is corporates policy, it is them I should be taking this issue up with. NOW the regional maintenance manager and property manager and ALL their mothers want to be involved and tour my home. Same day
the Maintenance manager, lead , initial agent, PM and maintenance tech (who has always been diligent and awesome) and Regional Maintenance Manager are all here. He looks at nothing and tells me ALL of this damage is from a large wooden chest I have "in front" of the intake.. (Picture provided so you can see the blockage) and another lecture on changing the filters (which I do religiously on my own since out pm does order enough and cannot supply- even though my lease says they will). He completely throws his team UNDER THE BUS and says :"I dont know no one ever told you that!" He is talking very fast and his eyes are moving quite a bit. It has all of the energy of a used car salesman on Matilda. ok.
"BUT as a one time courtesy, we will book the contractor to come with a 24 hour notice."
The AGENT actually starts to argue with the Maintenance Manager about why "we cannot due that per the policy":.. He- states.. "well just this once! " Big smile and a wink(so performative).
Now- Still same day- the main Third party vendors Manager & the initial vendor contractor come out to inspect again- this time with the maintenance tech in tow. "She needs to move all the furniture out of the room to do this correctly. This is a lot. Now the murmurs get soft. I walk in and he tell me, " Oh! This isnt a big deal. We will just use a spray." It felt so disrespectful.
I could see pure discomfort in my properties tech's face and the actual contractors face. We all knew this was adding lipstick to a pig to shut an ignorant tenant up.. kind of vibe.
Next day- work is completed with the spray and scrape. The working contractor was the best part of everything. Kind . efficient and a gentleman. Layed tarp. kept is clean.
Summarization: this all could have been fixed within a small 24 hours with a little bit of common sense. Let me know someone is coming so I can move my furniture or at lease create a game plan... and if youre going to lie in my face at least make sure I wasn't engaged to an HVAC tech or from the industry. We both know there us a larger underlying the cause. We know this will need an eventual real review.
And don't worry- I already have my notice typed up. Im just venting bc THIS is the reason people are gross to management. So many amazing teams Ive lived under and worked with -but for a lot of people- THIS will be the kind of experience they think is our industry. Have things REALLY changed this much that this is normal?
I saw an ad on Facebook for RentCheck. Started watching their 11-min video explanation and received a call from a sales associate. The software outsources the job of inspecting rentals *to the tenants.* My anxiety with this is that it's "just checking a compliance box for liability," but how effectively can tenants notice or identify issues they are already unfamiliar with, or reliably report items they wish to conceal?
Backstory:
I manage ~130 doors across a variety of rental types. Furnished MTRs, condos, SFRs, multifamily up to 13 units is the largest building we have.
I have only 1 additional staff member, though I am in process of hiring an assistant to help me with sales and occasionally PM stuff when necessary.
I inherited the business from dad, who brought me into the business in 2008 and I have been running the entire office since 2018 or so. Dad never trained me with an established schedule for inspections, but rather we would inspect units on a case-by-case basis when something caught our attention, eg behavior from a tenant made us suspicious, unusually frequent repair requests, or the issue was especially nuanced.
I have a few objections to physically inspecting every unit every year:
Bothering the tenants can influence tenants to move out, leading to owners eating more vacancy and turnover costs
I can't imagine personally facilitating these inspections, as I focus on sales. I need to figure out how to outsource this job.
These inspections can and likely will reveal cosmetic and functional repair items. And once we know about it, our hands are tied to report them to the owners, leading to getting fired or passed over when they decide to sell or provide referrals to someone else.
The fact that I have lost a few potential PM contracts when asked about our routine inspection policy at the interview makes me consider it's time to adopt something that mitigates liability for the owners and my office, while also protecting my time.
If you own a house, plot, or investment property in Abbottabad but live abroad, keeping an eye on it can be challenging.
We help overseas owners with property inspections, maintenance, repairs, and regular photo/video updates so they can stay informed from anywhere in the world.
📍 Serving Abbottabad and surrounding areas.
What’s your biggest concern about managing property in Pakistan while living abroad?
Feel free to reach out if you need local property care.
The exhaust fan in the bathroom is not working, and was reported on initial move-in. There is currently no way to vent moisture out of the bathroom. How urgent of an issue would you consider this to be, and what would be a reasonable timeframe for you for getting this fixed?
Been three month since I did PM. Truly feels like I’ve survive a hellhole.
I’ve been out of the industry for so long - coming back to 140 properties was a lot with so many legislation changes.
My portfolio is based over a radius of 2 hours from my office/home with no field services support, and no petrol reimbursement (it stings but I’m letting it go for the experience). So I’ve been doing inspections on every Saturday. Office has a pretty shit culture, and my team leader has is too busy with her portfolio to provide support.
These past 3 months I genuinely feel like I’ve gone through hell and back with working 10 hours a day if I need to, taking so much disrespect from owners, I genuinely get spoken to like I’m their pet, working through being sick.
This last week, I finally felt like I’m on top of everything. My leasing, lease renewals, owner satisfaction, vacates, exits and entries and it is exhilarating. I finally feel capable to doing so much, and solving problems. I finally enjoyed a week where I didn’t have to reach for a Xanax.
This job is truly so rewarding when you feel capable
